Pondering Empathy.

Empathy is considered an essential element within a therapeutic relationship, whilst achieving “deep empathy ” is empathy in what could be described as a more advanced and intentional state. Rogers, the father of Humanistic Therapy, describes deep empathy as “entering the private perceptual world of the other, and becoming thoroughly at home with it” (1980).

When deep empathy is present, the counselor or listener may describe their experience something like Hart does in this passage;

“understanding of the other deepens beyond what I can easily explain. I seem to experience the other’s feelings directly in my own body or recognize patterns, histories, or meanings that do not appear to come from interpreting the words and gestures that we exchange” (2000, p. 253)

It is though any boundaries between self and the other are blurred…

Beautiful. We Are One.

Connection with other as the basis of therapeutic relationships. Simple and Profound.

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Funny…I kind of got sidetracked on that post. I was initially pondering the idea of “boundaries” and empathy. What are appropriate boundaries and how do we maintain professional and personal boundaries yet create a therapeutic space infused with deep presence?

It’s lovely, I became a bit high writing this post and forgot the original burning question that was asking to be asked! one whiff of empathy and I was swept away by the artful truth of it. I’m in love with my studies at the moment.

Here is a beautiful Fran Peavey quote: “Empathy and nonattachment are the skills of saints. It might take you a bit longer to deal with suffering empathically rather than judgmentally but the effects are profound. Don’t expect to be in the presence of pain and not be profoundly affected by it. When we are at the edge of what we feel to be comfortable with, we may feel a kind of vertigo which threatens to pull us into a void and join the pain and the rage that goes with it. Will you go over the edge or stay here? Be patient with yourself and the people you are questioning. Witnessing pain is caring. Ideas for action may occur in the act of listening. Allowing change to ripen is caring. Caring is healing. By bringing strategic questions into a world of suffering, you can become part of that world learning to heal itself, looking for ways that the pain can move”

"Counsellors need to be in touch with their spirituality, the inarticulateness of knowing, meeting, remembering, sharing, journeying together. The way into these experiences is often unexpected and found in areas in which we are less competent and more vulnerable, using less-dominant traits, less-used senses, in metaphor, through nature, in the shared but incomplete intimacy of the privilege of the counselling or supervision room"